Turntable IRL Dance Party

Last night was the second "In Real Life" Turntable Dance party in NYC.  Held at the Canal Room, 5 Djs battled it out in front of a live audience.  For those of you who don't know, Turntable (TT) is an great way to discover, learn about, and play songs in cyberspace.  You are a little character (an avatar) who selects a room playing a particular genre and rates a song as it's played.  If the DJ Avatar plays popular songs it is rewarded with points.  It normally looks something like this:

Now imagine all of those bobbing heads being human and you get an idea of what the Canal Room was shooting for.  Anyone who cannot be there can also tune in to the room from anywhere in the world (but you miss out on the live action).  All of the DJs have a corresponding picture of their avatar hanging from the table and are seated in the same order as you would find on the online version, projected behind them.

Picture a club where the DJ truly has to listen and cater to his audience.  A club where rather than yelling over the crowd you can simply type the name of the song you would like played or vote/comment on the song currently playing (there is a real-time chat feed on the right hand side).  This is yet another example of how social media gives voice to the customer.  Very cool.

Canal Room was a much better venue for this concept than New Work City, the first host.  That being said, there were far too many technical difficulties and the crowd didn't seem as large/enthusiastic.  It would be great to see the two combine forces, because it really is an interesting concept that just needs a few details hashed out.